Related papers: QCD Axion Strings or Seeds?
We investigate the static potential in the confinement phase of the SU(2) Higgs model on the lattice, where this model is expected to have properties similar to QCD. We observe that Wilson loops are inadequate to determine the potential at…
The complex field $\Phi$ containing the QCD axion has a natural portal coupling to the Higgs doublet of the form $\lambda_{h \phi}|\Phi|^2 |H|^2$. Here we consider the possibility that $\lambda_{h \phi}$ has a natural magnitude for a…
In supersymmetric theories with a strong conformal sector, soft supersymmetry breaking naturally gives rise to confinement and chiral symmetry breaking in the strong sector at the TeV scale. We construct and analyze models where such a…
A sextet quark sector of QCD, together with the sextet higgs mechanism, would produce a major change in the strong interaction above the electroweak scale. This change may already be evident in Cosmic Ray physics and, if so, dramatic…
We outline some general features of possible extensions of the Standard Model that include anomalous U(1) gauge symmetries, a certain number of axions and their mixings with the CP-odd Higgs sector. As previously shown, after the mixing one…
The confining string in presence of dynamical quarks can behave in different ways, depending on the quark masses and on the number N_f N_c of charge species. For light masses and large N_f N_c the creation of quark pairs produces…
We study axion effective field theories (EFTs), with a focus on axion couplings to massive chiral gauge fields. We investigate the EFT interactions that participate in processes with an axion and two gauge bosons, and we show that, when…
It has been argued recently that string theory effects qualitatively modify the effective black hole geometry experienced by modes with radial momentum of order $1/\sqrt{\alpha'}$. At tree level, these $\alpha'$-effects can be explicitly…
We investigate the possibility of large CP- violating phases in the soft breaking terms derived in superstring models. The bounds on the electric dipole moments (EDM's) of the electron and neutron are satisfied through cancellations…
Flat directions are a generic feature of the scalar potential in supersymmetric gauge field theories. They can arise, for example, from D-terms associated with an extra abelian gauge symmetry. Even when supersymmetry is broken softly, there…
Axion strings are horizon-size topological defects that may be produced in the early Universe. Ultra-light axion-like particles may form strings that persist to temperatures below that of big bang nucleosynthesis. Such strings have been…
We show that stable local cosmic strings are a generic prediction of supersymmetric models where supersymmetry is broken at scales within a few orders of magnitude of the weak scale and is fed down to the observable sector by gauge…
The QCD axion needs not be an exact pseudoscalar for solving the strong CP problem. Its imperfectness can play a profound role cosmologically. We propose effective operators, where the Peccei-Quinn field linearly couples to Standard Model…
We study the minimal requirements to obtain axion strings for axions with exponentially good quality. These ingredients appear in theories where an axion coming from a higher-form gauge field mixes with the phase of a complex scalar field…
We propose a way to generate the electroweak symmetry breaking radiatively in non-supersymmetric type I models with string scale in the TeV region. By identifying the Higgs field with a tree-level massless open string state, we find that a…
The axion solution to the strong CP problem is delicately sensitive to Peccei-Quinn breaking contributions that are misaligned with respect to QCD instantons. Heavy QCD axion models are appealing because they avoid this so-called "quality…
The AdS/QCD models suggest an interesting idea that the effective theory of low-energy QCD may be formulated as a 5-dimensional field theory in the weak coupling regime in which the fifth coordinate plays a role of inverse energy scale.…
We investigate the effects of explicit breaking of Z(3) symmetry due to the presence of dynamical quarks on the formation and evolution of Z(3) walls and associated QGP strings within Polyakov loop model. We carry out numerical simulations…
QCD strings originate from high-energy scattering in the form of Reggeons and Pomerons, and have been studied in some detail in lattice numerical simulations. Production of multiple strings, with their subsequent breaking, is now a…
We construct two anomaly-free supersymmetric $U(1)'$ models with a secluded $U(1)'$-breaking sector. For the one with $E_6$ embedding we show that there exists a strong enough first order electroweak phase transition for electroweak…